Pause for a moment and travel back in time. The sweet aroma of fresh-cut pine logs wafts under your nose. The lively sound of the fiddle fills your ears. Your senses are alive with the whistling of the wind, the faint scent of sweat and the thwack of axes hitting a tree stump.

Welcome to the the world of Cirque Alfonse, a Quebec troupe known for blending circus elements seamlessly with traditional Quebec folklore.

Cirque Alfonse will be at Zoellner Arts Center Oct. 5 to perform its newest work, "Timber!" Troupe members will juggle with axes, leap over each other while balancing on logs and many other feats of acrobatics and daring while telling the story of a family of lumberjacks.

Cirque Alfonse was established in 2005 in the village of Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez in Quebec. The group didn't plan to be a circus at first. Its premiere show, "La Brunante," was organized as a birthday gift from children to their father, says Alain Francoeur, the troupe's director.

"The daughter comes from dance and the son comes from circus, and the father helped them in their career, so they just wanted to reward him," Francoeur says. "So we did a show. After that we decided to be a family company, an old family company like in European circus."

The group is comprised of three generations of the Carabinier family, including father Alain, his children Julie and Antoine, Julie's partner Jonathan and their 3-year-old son Arthur. There are also three musicians who perform traditional and original songs to help set the pace of the action.

"The company is the family," Francoeur says. "We are collaborators from the beginning."

Cirque Alfonse is the latest in a long line of circus greats to emerge from Quebec, such as Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Eloize. Jonathan performed in Cirque du Soleil's "Love."

Cirque Alfonse calls itself a contemporary show, but it is grounded in the traditions of Quebec folklore, in large part due to the family's history. Saint-Alphonse-Rodriguez is a small village in the countryside that is rich in traditional music and culture. Francoeur says Antoine and Julie wanted this culture to shine through in its shows.

"Cirque Alfonse preserves the roots," Francoeur says. "It's a circus, but it's always related to the roots that make what we are as a French culture."

With "Timber!" the troupe explores the world of the North American lumberjack. The show takes place during the early 1900s and creates something new using the objects and images from that time, Francoeur says.

"What we did is you get the vocabulary of the circus and explore it with the objects that were real," Francoeur says.

Determining how to apply the circus vocabulary to these real objects required months of research and a process of trial and error. Francoeur says the group thoroughly studied each object and try to figure out a way to use it in the performance.

The troupe juggles with axes and potatoes and onions and performs the Russian bar with a narrow piece of wood.

"That's the thing with 'Timber!'" Francoeur says. "It's real and unreal, and it talks to you for the memories of what your grandfather has been living and what's happening right now. It brings back the roots forward today so they don't die."

Francoeur says the show appeals to feelings of nostalgia but there's something for every age.

"If you're 5 years old and if you're 75, you won't relate to the show in the same way," Francoeur says. "I think that's the quality of the company, to arrive at something that can reach a big range of public on different levels."

What is universal, however, is that everyone can sense the lively spirit and the happiness of the Cirque Alfonse troupe.

"The energy of the people on stage is incredible," Francoeur says. "It's really contagious. And the show has been performed for three years now everywhere over the world, and it's working everywhere. We're talking about tradition and roots, and they're the same for each country."